Morphological Variations in Lumbricals of Hand – A Cadaveric Study

The hand is a prehensile organ, it is endowed with grasping and precision movements for skilled work and it acts as a chief tactile apparatus. Thus human hand is a revolution in evolution. Indeed the lumbricals of the hand by producing flexion at the metacarpophalangeal joints and extension at the interphalangeal joints helps in writing, stitching and any other forms of precision work. A study was conducted in the department of Anatomy, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal with 30 cadavers of both sexes. The study was carried out to check for the variations in the origin, insertion, innervations and the extension of lumbrical muscle.93.3% of case showed the normal morphology of lumbricals and remaining showed the variations like bifid first lumbrical, bipennate 2nd lumbrical, absence of 3rd lumbrical, hypertrophied 1st lumbrical. Anomalous and additional lumbrical muscle can cause carpal tunnel syndrome by compressing the median nerve. Hypertrophy of the lumbricals could compress the radial and ulnar arteries of the fingers, causing chronic sub ischemia. Hence present work is under taken to know the variations in the lumbricals.